Jerry-- sorry I didn't answer before--sure, I'd love to be a Messenger. I sure try to get into the swing of it when my group (about 180) does gospel. We mostly do pretty heavy stuff--Mozart Requiem, Brahms Requiem, Bach St. Matthew Passion etc. And I love that--my all-time favorite piece of any genre is the Brahms Requiem, partly because Brahms made it an inclusive as possible (not specifically Christian), and emphasizes the consoling aspects, no Hell and damnation--- and also because it's just wonderful music. And since I speak German, I can understand what we're singing.

But when we do gospel, I try to get out of the printed score as fast as I can--so you get into the spirit of the music. My group does a good job on Deep River--with a huge dynamic range, and bringing out the melody while letting the other parts just stay in the background. But in livelier pieces the group just finds it agony to swing--Jan says she's embarrassed at watching all the stiff choral singers. And some just never get into it at all--they're fish out of water and stand there frowning while they sing-- and waiting for it to be over. But I sing and sway and grin--I love it--especially songs like Witness, Elijah Rock, and Ain'a That Good News?--the really lively ones. Of course I also get into it physically when we sing the classical pieces too.   But it's a shame to be narrow in music--among other things you deny yourself so much pleasure.

When we sing for the Martin Luther King celebration every year, we always sing with black groups and under black conductors. Gospel singing is sure totally different from what we're used to-- last time the conductor had a whole repertoire of gestures which told the singers where to go back to in the music--lots of repeats of phrases from various parts of the music--just until the director felt moved to go on, regardless of what was in the printed music--building the excitement.   You had to keep your eyes glued on the conductor, not the music at all--you had to have the music virtually memorized, even though we only had 2 rehearsals on it. Fantastic experience.